Congratulations guys, you’ve done it. It wasn’t easy, but your staunch dedication to avoiding the outside world at all costs is directly responsible for more console games being played this past year than the one prior. Nielsen recently released the findings of its Cross-Platform report which shows a jump of 14 percent in the amount of time spent playing console games over the last year. In addition to these results, console penetration is also up approximately four percent over Q2 2010.
So who’s doing all of that playing? Surely it’s California, right? Wrong. The city with the highest home platform penetration rate in the entire country is, somewhat shockingly, Baltimore, Maryland.
In addition, Nielsen made mention of the fact that 72 percent of households in the country now have some form of broadband internet, and 48 percent of Americans are using said broadband to stream video over the internet.
Also included in the report was this little nugget of data: traditional TV viewership rates were up by 2 hours and 43 minutes a month on average. So don’t go thinking that all of that extra gaming is a result of consumers putting down the remote.
A more likely explanation – and this is pure conjecture on my part – is that individuals have less disposable income these days and are holding on to the few extra bucks they do have for dear life. Staying home and playing games or watching TV is cheaper than many out-of-the-house entertainment activities. Chalk it up to the “new normal,” if you wish.
As for all of the new console purchases, those can likely be attributed to the slashing of prices by each of the Big Three. With the cost of entry lowered, it makes sense that more and more individuals and families are making game consoles part of their home entertainment systems.
[Source: Industry Gamers]
[Image via Cnet.]
